Patricia Thompson - NUTRITION TALK

ONCE WHILE shopping in the supermarket, as I passed down the aisle with a range of snack foods, I overheard a man saying to himself, "Me poor child never get to try any of these nice things yet. I must make him try one".

He was speaking of a child about one year old, perched on the trolley, and the snack he picked up was one of those 'puffs', high in salt and fat.

On another occasion, I observed a mother trying to force a toddler to drink milk from a bottle. When she finally gave up, she offered him soft drink that she had for herself. When I asked her why she did that, she answered that he was probably thirsty. Needless to say, that child was already showing signs of obesity.

INFLUENCING YOUR CHILD'S EATING HABITS

Parents often do not recognise that toddlers do not have the same tastes, preferences and perceptions about food as they do. These are acquired through learning. Small children therefore do not have a natural desire for salt, fat or sugar. It is the adults who teach and train them to develop these tastes. Children's hunger can be satisfied with wholesome food and their thirst is better quenched by plain water.

A child would be equally satisfied with a piece of fresh carrot stick as he would from a piece of chocolate. The toddler is able to appreciate the natural sweetness of carrots and those who are teething would easily prefer the firm texture against their tingling gums. To offer foods that are artificially salted, sweetened or with added fat only heightens the child's sensitivity to these tastes and increase their desire to have these flavours and textures later on.

PREDISPOSING YOUR CHILD TO EARLY ILL HEALTH

It is scientifically proven that children are predisposed to the vagaries of chronic diseases like obesity even from within their mother's womb. In the latter part of pregnancy when the baby is growing rapidly in size, fat cells are already being formed. A baby of normal weight will have a normal number of fat cells. One weighing upwards of nine pounds will have an increased number of fat cells that will not be lost later on but will instead be available for storing excess fat. This is one reason why some people gain weight more easily than others. They have more fat cells to fill up. Coupled with an increased desire for salt, fat and sweet, this leads to overeating, thereby providing the means of filling up the fat cells.

ROLE OF PARENTS

Parents have a role to play in guiding their child to develop desirable food choices and eating habits. A child who rarely tastes water will grow to have distaste for it. Likewise, children whose taste buds are not attuned to natural tastes and flavours of wholesome food will always seek to artificially flavour their foods.

Eating habits are a discipline that is learnt just like manners and respect. A child who snacks any time of day out of sync with the eating cycle will gradually lose the natural control over hunger and thirst signals. External influences will then take precedence over internal cues for eating and such a person, will later in life 'live to eat' rather than 'eat to live'. There is no need to rush your child's exposure to special snack foods since this will surely happen when they enter school. The onus is on the parent to take eating for their children more seriously.

Patricia Thompson M.Sc., Registered Nutritionist, The Nutrition Centre, Eden Gardens.